"Better Health and More Sense"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 159, 10 July 1942, Page 14

"Better Health and More Sense"

By Queen Elizabeth’s time the ritual was ceremoniously established. The royal physician assembled the patients and excluded those regarded as unsuitable. The remainder had to produce a certificate that they had not been treated previously — apparently faith healing in the Middle Ages had just as short-lived an effect as nowadays, and precautions had to be taken against return visits. Royalty blessed the sufferers, touched the sores, and a gold piece was hung around each neck. Elizabeth, being careful economically, made the coins smaller. James I. continued the practice for political purposes, but disbelieved in it. William III. laid on his hands with these words "May God give you better health and more sense." Queen Anne practised the royal touch, but she was the last, and Dr. Samuel Johnston happened to be one of the final patients touched, then being four years old. Scrofula fs little seen nowadays except among backward peoples. You will in New Zealand rarely see a patient among Europeans, but the disease is not uncommon among Maoris. A Maori child with freely discharging enlarged neck glands is no rarity in Maori areas. Modern hygiene, with its good housing, has diminished the risk of tuberculosis infection in Europeans. Bad housing and sleeping conditions and poor sanitation give increased contact with discharges and wastes of tuberculous sufferers, and markedly increases the risk of spread from patient to other persons in the household. So some of our Maori children still suffer from the "King’s Evil." They will gain the same freedom from the disease as Europeans when their environment and their health knowledge approaches ours.